Public Money, Public Code: Munich one step back - others two steps forward.

More than two years ago, Munich abandoned their strategy of developing an independent IT infrastructure built with Free Software and the free operating system GNU/Linux and went back to depending on proprietary software. We followed this process closely and like to give an update today about what has happened since then in Munich and in Europe in general. Did we manage to gain more independence and control over our IT or did dependencies on monopolies increase over the past two years?

Retrospect

The LiMux project was started 13 years ago when the city of Munich needed to replace their no longer supported Windows NT4 workstations. In that period, 15.000 workstations were migrated to vendor-neutral Free Software solutions and Open-Standard-based file formats supported by local IT companies. This initiative not only was an example of a successful move to more independence, but also served as a role model of how to strengthen the local IT industry.

Picture by Marco Verch, CC-BY 2.0

But then things took a turn for the worse. In 2014, the SPD entered a coalition agreement with the CSU and Dieter Reiter (SPD) was elected new mayor of Munich. The new coalition started to question the LiMux strategy as soon as their term started, and asked Accenture, a Microsoft partner located in the same building as Microsoft, to analyse Munich's IT infrastructure. The report can be found here (German). It is worth noting that, despite their close connection with Microsoft, in their report, analysts identify primarily organisational issues at the root of the problems troubling LiMux's uptake, but no significant technical issues.

Nevertheless, the coalition filed a surprise motion with minimal lead time before the city council, with the goal to end LiMux once and for all.

Back then we, together with other independent parties, came to the conclusion that LiMux suffered from organisational problems, including lack of clear structures and responsibilities, something the Accenture report confirmed. These where independent from the software used on client machines, and switching operating systems alone would not solve them.

Where we are today

Munich is still in the transition back to proprietary software. This whole process will cost the citizens of Munich nearly 90 million Euros in the next six years. Meanwhile, looking at other cities in Germany and all over Europe, we see that many regions push for more independence. Free Software in public administrations is not a short‐term trend. The last few years have seen significant changes in the attitudes of public administrations towards IT procurement, increasingly favouring a strategic, long‐term‐oriented approach.

Free Software solutions are helping governments address different challenges, from democratic governance to natural disaster prevention. Some projects are not only deployed but also developed internationally. Popular projects, such as Consul, GNU Health, X-Road, and CKAN, highlight the potential of Free Software for cooperation across borders. In Germany, the Government decided to run their own, Free Software Cloud Solution, called Bundescloud. 300,000 people in ministries and other federal institutions will use this federal cloud. The Government of France decided to build a country wide messaging platform based on Free Software and many more exciting projects are happening all over Europe in an effort to increase IT independence of public administrations. But Munich, once a spearhead in this modernization effort, is now backpedalling on what the city achieved and, instead of institutionalizing it, they are giving up on the experience and knowledge they acquired with their new software.

To support these activities and in order to convince more administrations to migrate to Free Software, the Free Software Foundation Europe runs the well received "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign. The initiative asks legislators to establish the rule that publicly financed software developed for the public sector must be made publicly available under a Free Software license. If it is public money, it should be public code as well.

Our Brochure summarises the FSFE's long-term expertise with additional knowledge from leading experts in various ICT areas. It helps readers understand Free Software and its benefits for a modern digital public infrastructure. Please help us spread the word about the campaign and share our videos (available in many languages) and - if you haven't already - sign our open letter.

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How the Parliament of Asturias decided to sign the open letter demanding "Public Money? Public Code!" - an interview with Iyán Méndez Veiga

"The Parliament of Asturias commits itself to the international "Public Money, Public Code" campaign" - this is a quote from the first demand in a recent proposal brought by the Parliament of Asturias to its government. It is also the happy end of continuous lobbying efforts from Oviedo's local hackerspace "Pica Pica Hacklab", using the FSFE's campaign material mixed with their self-developed brand of social hacking. Meanwhile, the Parliament of Asturias backed up its words with deeds and officially signed the open letter of our "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign - being the very first Parliament to do so. To shed light on this successful story and inspire local groups around the world, we conducted an interview with Iyán Méndez Veiga, member of Pica Pica Hacklab.

FSFE: You are a member of Pica Pica HackLab in Oviedo, Asturias. A hackerspace that refers to itself as "a collective of Eco Hackers". Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit what Pica Pica HackLab is and what you are doing?

Iyán Méndez Veiga: I am doing my masters-study in physics at the University of Ulm, Germany, but I am initially from Oviedo where I joined Pica Pica Hacklab five years ago. Pica Pica is a small organisation and we are focussing on spreading the word about the use and benefits of Free Software in our region. The whole project started ten years ago when the original members of Pica Pica noticed the lack of activities related to Free Software in our region and so they decided to do something. Just some weeks later, Pica Pica already organised its first workshop about Free Software.

Calling ourselves "eco hackers" is to emphasise that we also do some activities that are not usually related to hacker spaces or hacker labs. For example we are fighting against planned obsolescence. On our website you can find tutorials how to use your toner till its end and not until the printer claims you have to change it. Also we have workshops about technology and birds, using Free Software to live-record the sound of birds and later use the audio to identify them. Later this year we will also try to publish something similar about bats because we have been using Free Software to record bat sounds and recognise them. So Pica Pica mixes technology and environmental studies, and we like that mix.

Some of the Pica Pica Hacklab members at a regular meetup in 2016. (Picture by Iyán Méndez Veiga, CC-BY 4.0)

Currently Pica Pica has six active members. That seem like a small group, but a lot of people usually come to our introduction workshops. Also there is a lot of fluctuation. Meaning some people come, they are active for a while but then they go again. In the past, for example, a medical student preparing the MIR exam in Oviedo joined us. He was very interested in Free Software and he even gave a talk about hacking some medical devices. We always have our door open.

Do you think there is a good Free Software scene or culture in Asturias or in Oviedo in particular? I mean a hackerspace normally does not grow from nowhere.

I would say it is a not a big thing in Asturias. But we are trying to spread it more and more. So, although most communication happens via email, we try to meet as often as we can. Then, once a year, we have this big workshop about the introduction to Free Software which is split in two sessions. The first part is about the idea behind the Free Software movement and the second part is hands-on installing Free Software. But we do a lot of other activities, as well. For example, when it was the 30th birthday of FSF, we organised a party and we also did it with the 20th birthday of KDE. And we hosted the first FLISOL event in Europe in our city back in 2010 and we have been doing so for the last 10 years.

Thank you very much for this introduction, now let's talk about your latest success: you convinced the Asturian parliament to write a proposal to the government to support the FSFE's "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign. How did you first become aware of the campaign?

Well, we received an email from FSFE which came just in time because we were already working on a similar proposal to our government some years before the "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign. The first time we tried to convince the Parliament was in 2015, during the previous regional elections. We wrote a similar document back then and when we saw the European "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign coming up, we used the moment to merge the two initiatives and give it a second try. Then, after some preparation, we started to contact the politicians of the Parliament in Asturias in March 2018. That means, it took us almost one year of work until they finally voted "Yes" which happened in February 2019.

The proposal of the Parliament has three main items and the very first one is that the Parliament of Asturias supports the international "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative. So I would say, indeed, that the campaign's material served us a very good basis to get the Parliament's proposal.

The proposal of the Parliament has three main items and the very first one is that the Parliament of Asturias supports the international "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative.

Why did you choose the Parliament and not the government or a ministry to influence with your agenda?

Some years ago Pica Pica HackLab tried to contact the President of Asturias, Javier Fernandez. Back then, in 2013, they created a committee of experts to give technological advise after the financial crisis. Alexis, first member of Pica Pica, wrote a letter to highlight that the committee was highly represented by Microsoft Ibérica (María Garaña, former president of Microsoft Ibérica was part of that comittee) and that this was probably not the best choice in the interest of our region. Obviously, there was a conflict of interest between what Asturias needed and wanted and what Microsoft wanted. So we wrote this letter to the President of Asturias and we were totally ignored. And we realised that it does not work very well to directly communicate with the government. In our experience, it is easier to contact the political parties that have representation in the parliament. And that is what we did this time.

Actually everything was going better when we had these face-to-face meetings. So as soon as we realised this, we started to do some kind of "social hacking"

How does this work in practice? Does it mean a lot of individual meetings with individual members from different parties or is there something like a public hour per week where you can talk with them?

It was a long process because when you start you do not yet have any good ways of contact like their phone numbers. So, everything was done via email at first. And then, as soon as we got some dialogue started, we sped things up and asked for meetings. Actually everything was going better when we had these face-to-face meetings. So, as soon as we realised this, we started doing some kind of "social hacking": the problem is that you cannot go to the Parliament of Asturias without an invitation. But once you have an invitation for a meeting with some of the politicians via email and you are inside the building, you can move freely. So we used the chance to knock on doors, office by office of politicians who did not yet reply or invite us, and this was a great chance to speak with these politicians directly and face-to-face even with a pending invitation.

Do you have a rough estimation of how many times you were going to the parliament?

I do not know exactly the number of meetings but I would say there were two important meetings. One with the first proposal with two or three political parties that were already going to vote yes. They agreed with the text of the initiative but the rest was not so sure. In these meetings we were actually trying to emphasise different aspects of "Public Money? Public Code!" depending on the direction the policial party is more aligned with. The idea behind this was that they are totally different parties but we want them all to vote in favour of the same thing. So we emphasised different benefits of Free Software to the different parties. For example the PP (conservative traditional party) was more interested in tax savings. But with the PSOE (labour party), which is also the governing party now, we tried to highlight the sharing aspect, so you can collaborate with other regions. If you develop something in one region, then you can share it later with the other regions. You do not have to invest again and again or to reinvent the wheel. Then we theorised that in the last elections it was a new party in our region that is more focused on transparency. We tried to convince them by highlighting that Free Software is the only kind of software that you can audit and that argument worked really well.

The idea behind was that they are totally different parties but we want them all to vote the same thing. So we tried to emphasise different benefits of Free Software to the different parties.

That means depending on the party's own directions and programs, you will use their own arguments for your causes?

Yes. The FSFE's campaign mentions four main advantages of using Free Software within public administrations. We used all four of them but with each party we emphasised one more than the others. That worked really well to convince them.

Did you also directly use the campaign's material like showing them the webpage or the video? Was the material useful for your purposes?

Yes. Actually the campaign's website is directly mentioned in the final proposal, in the very first item. So the web page was a big help for us. About the video I do not exactly know if it was shown but I would have done it because it is really effective.

Pica Pica Hacklab team in front of the Parliament of Asturias after the Parliament's decision to support Public Money? Public Code! (Picture by Marcos Suárez, CC-BY 4.0)

Which party was the first one to be convinced?

The parties that were more closely cooperating from the very beginning and were answering all the emails were Izquierda Unida and Podemos. Very early on, Izquierda Unida said that they were going to vote yes and they told us publicly that they were going to do that. So there was no mystery about their vote. It was different for Ciudadanos, PP and PSOE. I think Ciudadanos, by the end of the meetings, they were probably going to vote yes and they mentioned that they were going to vote yes. So we were quite sure about that, but regarding PSOE and PP we had no idea until the final vote.

Those are the biggest parties, so you needed them or at least one of them to succeed. Since you knew the small parties are going to vote in favour you further concentrated your efforts on the big ones?

Yes, of course. We sent a lot of emails to them before the voting, but they never replied... It was good to get the yes from Izquierda Unida and Podemos. But without the the PP or PSOE we would not have succeeded. And so, on the election day we were all watching the parliamentary session with tension.

And then you were successful, congratulations! Can you briefly explain what it is that the Parliament actually voted on and what it means?

I do not know how to legally translate this proposal. I would say something like non-binding motion or proposal or something like that. So there is the first item, it does not involve the government because it is says: "the Parliament of Asturias supports the European campaign of 'Public Money? Public Code!'". Meanwhile they followed their accepted proposal and are officially listed as signatories of the open letter of the campaign.

Then, the other two items are more related to the government. It basically takes the message from the "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign and although it is not mandatory, it asks the government to use Free Software in public administrations. So it is not a law, it is not binding, but it is an intention.

I think for the first time, a lot of politicians understood what Free Software is.

Is there a legal obligation for the government to reply to it?

I am not a legal expert, but I would say no. I think what was more useful about this is that, I think for the first time, a lot of politicians understood what Free Software is. At least now they know the movement, they know the concept, they know the issues with proprietary software. And our representatives in the parliament are now aware of that.

But also it serves as a very good basis for us. We are not naive and we know that this proposal is not like the last step but more like the first one. But we can use it for the ones that will come next. For example, we are in elections period and our idea is to ask the parties somehow to reflect this motion passed on their proposals for the next government. Then, once we have the new government by the end of next month, we will start working again with the Parliament and remind them of this decision. And if it is not PSOE again who is governing we can directly speak with the governing party and remind them that they agreed on fostering Free Software and ask them what are the things they are going to do regarding points two and three of the proposal. And if they do nothing, we will be there to let them know that we do not forget and we want them to do something about it.

We know that this proposal is not like the last step but more like the first one. But we can use it for the ones that will come next.

Do you think the elections will change something in the current government in Asturias?

To be honest, I do not know which party will win. The current governing party is the only party which voted no. So concerning Free Software any new party is supposed to be better. But we know that it is one thing to vote yes when you are in the opposition and often it is totally different when you are governing and you have to do something about it. So let us wait to see what happens.

We wish you good luck with this and thank you very much for this very interesting interview!

Interviewer: Erik Albers

With our Public Money? Public Code! campaign, the FSFE demands that publicly financed software developed for the public sector shall be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence. In order to help understand our call and its benefits, we run a series of interviews that highlight good examples and use-cases as best practices.

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FSFE Newsletter April 2019

This month's newsletter highlights the presence of the FSFE's campaign"Public Money? Public Code!" in German media and its growing popularity across Europe. You can find a short reminder of the news around the newly voted Copyright Directive, as well as a short summary of what else has happened during the past month. In the Get Active section this month we remind you of the new open call the Next Generation Internet project we are part of has launched. Additionally you can find out about new events we are attending and the Web-a-thon we organise in Frankfurt am Main.

"Public Money? Public Code!" in German media

PMPC in German media

Our campaign Public Money? Public Code! has really taken off, as German media WDR and t3n picked it up earlier this month. The FSFE's initiative received prominent support in the media from various Bundestag members, as well as digital politics activists and publicists embracing the free licenses for software receiving money from public sector.

Additionally, t3n, who also supports the campaign, published an interview with the FSFE's Public Policy Manager, Alexander Sander on the way public sector, like the city of Barcelona, deploys Free Software in its administration and city solutions: "The city manages to "react to the digital transformation with appropriate digital solutions". "The government's agenda today is 70 percent determined by the proposals made through Decidim." says the Public Policy Manager. He believes that administrations could save money in the long term by using free-open source software: different communities might share programs and knowledge, new software would not have to be bought at high cost or completely redeveloped." Alexander Sander also mentioned Barcelona was the first major European city to support this action.

Please, feel welcome to also express your support by spreading the word and sharing our brochure

Copyright Directive was adopted

The European Parliament adopted the controversial Copyright Directive by 348 votes in favour, 274 votes against and 36 abstentions. Heated discussions about the introduction of upload filters ended up in protests of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets all across Europe. You can read our press release on the topic.

Join our community of freedom fighters: https://my.fsfe.org/support

Inside and Outside the FSFE

Pablo González in Medialab Madrid

Pablo González, the FSFE's Madrid Coordinator, was present with an info booth between March 26th and 28th at the Taller de Periodismo de Datos in Medialab Prado in Madrid, Spain. He met with local journalists, hackers and data researchers interested in the FSFE's initiatives and goals, and topics like Open Standards and privacy. We also published our #ilovefs report where you can see only few of the pictures and graphics used during the day, as unfortunately, we couldn't include all the wonderful photos we saw. And you can also have insights on some numbers in statistics. On 3 April, the FSFE's Policy Manager Alexander Sander was at the Open Platform for Open Data? in Vienna, Austria. There, he talked about the challenges and contradictions of the models public administrations face when deploying software, as well as provided ways forward on how to shape the open data debate in a way that systematically promotes the public interest. Alexander Sander also made few other presentations on that topic at the Netzpolitischer Abend on 4 April in Vienna and on April 5th at the Grand Garage in Linz, Austria. A full video of his talk in Vienna is also available. Marcus Moeller, the FSFE Switzerland Coordinator, gave a presentation promoting the sustainable use of electronic equipment for educational purposes and thus also promoting Free Software, on 6 April at the Open Education Day in Berne, Switzerland. His presentation was given in front of teachers, people engaged with school informatics, as well as people interested in introducing and promoting Free Libre Open Source Software, Open Content or Open Hardware at their school. On 6 April the FSFE was present with an information and merchandise booth at another event - the 18th "Linux-Infotag Augsburg". The event took place in the premises of the IT faculty of the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences. On April 8th, The FSFE's Policy Analyst Alexander Sander and Programme Manager Erik Albers gave a presentation at Escola del Treball de Barcelona about our "Public Money?Public Code!" Campaign. The meetup, lead by Monica Bernardi from Dimmos, discussed public policies around Free Software, public money and how to leverage Free Software to push public administrations into the next level. You can also watch the full video from the event.

Escola del Treball de Barcelona

This month we had local FSFE supporter meetings in Hamburg, Bonn, Kiel and Zurich, Switzerland. Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE On 26 and 27 April, Max Mehl, the FSFE's Programme Manager, will give a keynote about Free Software as a solution to many pressing IT security problems at the Grazer Linuxtage. He will look at the pros and cons and use concrete examples to illustrate why security and openness are not contradictory. If you are close by, pay a visit to his talk at the Technical University Graz. On 11 May, the FSFE will be present with a booth at T-Dose in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Visit the booth for interesting dicussions and chats about Free Software. On 21 May, Erik Albers, the FSFE's Communication Manager, will talk at the Magdeburger Developer Days about how we can help ours and future generations to safe resources with the help of software. Between 24 and 26 May, the FSFE will host a web-a-thon in Frankfurt (Main) with the intend to have a fruitful collective work on improving the FSFE's homepage. The web-a-thon will happen at the local Chaos Computer Club. Be there, or be square. Get Active

Next Generation Internet Project - Open Call

Next Generation Internet Initiative: The third call of NGI Zero Discovery and NGI Zero PET opened up on April 1st 2019, with a deadline for submissions of June 1st 2019 12:00 CET.

NGI Zero Discovery is seeking for project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euros - with the potential to scale them up if there is proven potential. Search should not be a gatekeeper, a black box or a privacy nightmare. If the internet is the equivalent of a global brain, we need creativity and diversity in the pathways across that brain to unlock its true potential. Search and discovery are basic human needs for humans of all ages, and we would like to put powerful new technology in the hands of future generations as building blocks for a fair and democratic society and an open economy that benefits all.

NGI Zero PET is seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000 euros - with the potential to scale them up if there is proven potential. Reliability, confidentiality, integrity and security should be the 'new normal' of the internet, something ordinary users should not have to worry about. Trust is one of the key drivers for the Next Generation Internet, and an adequate level of privacy is a non-negotiable requirement for that. The desire is to assist independent researchers and developers to create powerful new technology, and to help them put it in the hands of future generations as building blocks for a fair and democratic society and an open economy that benefits all.

If your proposal ends up amongst the winners list, you will receive licensing advices and consultation from the FSFE team.

Contribute to our newsletter

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org. We are looking forward to hearing from you. Also make sure to see your event in our next newsletter. Please use our new tool to announce it!

Thanks to our community, all the volunteers, supporters and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.

Your editor,

Galia Mancheva

Join our community of freedom fighters: https://my.fsfe.org/support

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#ilovefs Day report 2019

On Wednesday 14th of February, we acknowledge and celebrate the annual "I love Free Software Day". It is the day to express your love for Free Software and gratitude for your favourite pieces of Free Software. The Free Software Foundation Europe would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who participated and helped making this day a special one for everyone involved.

Loving Free Software #ilovefs

What happened in numbers and pictures

We counted hundreds of Tweets and posts both on Twitter and the Fediverse, and we are happy to announce that participation again has increased. Some were inspired to come up with their own visuals, while others decided to use our balloons and posters to decorate and remind those in the offline world about the importance of Free Software. And about the importance to send a big thank you at least once a year to all those Free Software solutions that we all use on a daily basis.

Spreading love for Free Software offline #ilovefs

People from Wikimedia spreading love for Free Software in Berlin

People from all over the world were showing their love with blog posts, news items, photos and artworks showing and encouraging others to join using the hashtag #ilovefs. As a result, Twitter, the Fediverse and even Facebook were flooded with love messages by people tagging their favourite Free Software projects. Thanks to our former intern and current volunteer Jan Weymeirsch who wrote a scraper to collect and analyse the data, we have concrete numbers and visuals to support them:

Participation in #ILoveFS on Social Media through time

Overall 667 distinct #ilovefs posts on Twitter and Fedeverse were counted, made by 530 individual accounts, mentioning at least 231 projects and developers. Posts on Twitter were coming from at least 230 different locations from all over the world in 16 different languages. In addition, there were many more "I love Free Software" posts that did not use the hashtag #ilovefs and cannot be part of this analysis, though.

#ilovefs participation on Twitter, Fediverse and Reddit

The Free Software community at its best

The important takeaway from all these numbers is the community feeling that it generates; that such a diverse group of people can share common values and attitudes towards software. It shows how much we all love sharing, using, studying and improving software for a better digital and analogue world!

#ilovefs by @Elektrollart

There were also projects and individuals from all over the world dedicating special blog entries or news items, and we would like to share some of them with you. Unfortunately, we are not able to highlight all of them but pick just a few. There was a student from Nepal who used the occasion to spread the word and explain IloveFS-day and the Free Software concept to those who are still unfamiliar with it.

The Open Project platform

The OpenProject went even further by expressing their affirmation for Free Software by integrating a #ilovefs banner into their platform.

Befriended communities like Wikimedia Deutschland, Open Source.com, Open Fest Bulgaria, LibreOffice and Percona, as well as the news site Pro-Linux reminded their readers and appealed to their communities to join the celebration and spread the love and gratitude.

Our friends from Barcelona Free Software organised a very cheerful meet up at a local bar and imbued everyone with the love for Free Software vibe.

A Cheers from the Free Software Community in Barcelona

We are also happy about companies getting active with spreading the word about Free Software and #ilovefs, and Zalando hosted a special event dedicated to the "I love Free Software" Day, hosted at their premises in Berlin. There were some interesting discussions with speakers sharing their reasons for using, loving and developing Free and Open Source solutions.

#ilovefs panel by Zalando

Save the date!

Sonja planting the #ilovefs seeds

In case you missed your opportunity to thank your favourite project, mark February 14 as "I Love Free Software Day" in your calendar for next year. But remember, you can always and without any special occasion create an opportunity to express your gratitude and appreciation throughout the entire year. You do not need a special day, as there is simply no wrong time for that!

We would like to thank everyone involved in and contributing to this day, as well as the countless developers, translators, community managers, artists and anyone else involved in Free Software.

We hope that this year's "I love Free Software Day" has further planted the seeds of Free Software passion in all of you, just like Sonja planted hers.

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Copyright Directive – EU safeguards Free Software at the last minute

The European Parliament adopted the controversial Copyright Directive by 348 votes in favour, 274 votes against and 36 abstentions. Today's vote marks the end of years of debate in the European Union. Heated discussions about the introduction of upload filters ended up in protests of tens of thousands people in the streets all across Europe. In a last minute action back in September 2018, the European Parliament adopted an amendment and pushed it through the trilogue to at least protect Free and Open Source Software.

“We are glad we were able to raise awareness and understanding of what drives software development in Europe nowadays among many policy makers. The exclusion of Free Software code hosting and sharing providers from this directive is crucial to keep Free Software development in Europe healthy, solid and alive. we are dismayed that the EU missed the opportunity to renew copyright to a reasonable extent. As upload filters are now introduced, we urge the European Commission to avoid filtering monopolies by companies this directive actually intended to regulate. We call on the European Commission to promote the dissemination of Free Software filter technologies, including financial support, for instance within the framework of research programmes Horizon2020 and Horizon Europe.” says Alexander Sander, Policy Manager of the Free Software Foundation Europe.

The Free Software Foundation Europe and Open Forum Europe started a campaign to “Save Code Share” in 2017. More than 14.000 people supported our call with an open letter which requests EU legislators to preserve the ability to collaboratively build software online in current EU Copyright Directive proposal.

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